Archive for the ‘Health Care Reform’ Category

This is the second in a series of posts about the HHS Mandate that all health insurance policies cover contraceptives (including drugs that cause early abortions) and sterilizations. There are so many misconceptions about what this mandate will involve, that I thought it would be helpful to lay out the facts.

Supporters of the mandate like to say that the various “compromises” and “accommodations” proposed by the Administration will ensure that individuals and religious institutions will be left alone and won’t have to do anything that violates their rights.

This fails to appreciate how the mandate will work in the real world. This mandate will inevitably lead to intrusive and offensive government investigations into religious organizations.

In order to qualify for the religious employer exemption, every religious organization will have to file with HHS a certification that they satisfy all the criteria. Since our parishes and schools are each separate employers, every single parish and every single school will have to file such a statement.

By filing that statement, every single one of our parishes, schools, and other agencies will be vulnerable to compliance investigation by HHS. Think for a second about this staggering scenario. Imagine an HHS employee who has the authority to grant or deny exemptions, and thus to levy onerous fines. This official will have the authority to come into our buildings and demand that a pastor or principal produce proof of the religious mission of the parish or school. He could demand that they document how they and their staffs spend their time, to see if they are really engaged in religious work. He can demand records about the religious affiliation of their employees and staff, and on the students in the school or religious education program or youth sports program. Nobody knows what criteria he will use to evaluate this information, or what standards the parish or school will have to meet.

It is difficult to conceive of a more intrusive and arbitrary government interference with the internal operations of a Church agency. It’s like a scene from a Kafka novel. Anyone who has ever had dealings with the IRS, the EPA, the Unemployment Office, or any other powerful, impersonal, unaccountable government agency, would recoil in horror.

This kind of intrusion is utterly inconsistent with authentic religious liberty, as upheld in the recent Supreme Court decision in the Hosanna Tabor case, which upheld the freedom of churches to govern their internal affairs, free from state interference. In fact, the risk of this kind of entanglement between the government and religious institutions was a significant factor in that decision.

Is this really what we want — where the government will come directly into the internal affairs of our churches and pass judgment on whether we’re “religious” enough? In America?

Thanks to the HHS Mandate, it’s not only conceivable, it’s inevitable.

The Church has been spending a great deal of energy trying to educate people about the HHS Mandate that all health insurance policies cover contraceptives (including drugs that cause early abortions) and sterilizations. There are many misconceptions about the scope of the mandate.

I have now blogged on this subject several times, but now I’d like to explain some of the essential facts that people need to know about the impact of the mandate.

We frequently hear the argument that the Church is not justified in objecting to the mandate, because the employer exemption — the main subject of the series of “compromises” and “accommodations” announced by the Administration — encompasses all churches and religious orders.

This is not accurate. The extent of the religious exemption in the health care law (officially known as the “Affordable Care Act” or “ACA”) is so narrow that it will reach very few Church institutions.

We must recall that, in the Archdiocese and in many other dioceses, each individual parish, school, and institution is a separate legal corporation. Under the law, they are considered the actual “employer” of their staff — not the diocese as a whole. It is also important to recognize that the ACA imposes inter-related mandates on individuals, employers and insurers — but only employers are afforded any possibility of conscience protection.

In applying the actual exemption, we will have to do an institution-by-institution analysis. Under the law, our parishes, schools, and other agencies would be exempt only if all four of the following criteria are met:

(a) its purpose is the inculcation of religious values,
(b) it primarily hires persons who share the organization’s religious tenets,
(c) it primarily serves person who share those tenets, and
(d) it is a nonprofit as described in sections of the IRS code relating to churches, their integrated auxiliaries, conventions or associations of churches, and the exclusively religious activities of a religious order.

It is likely that the exemption would cover most parish churches. But note that it is only “likely” and “most”, since it is by no means certain that all Catholic parishes “primarily hire” Catholics. Under federal, state and local laws that ban religious discrimination, only a few parish positions that would be considered ministerial (e.g., Director of Religious Education, music directors) can be reserved for Catholics, and all other non-ministerial positions (e.g., secretaries, maintenance men) must be open to non-Catholics. In fact, for those positions, it is probably illegal even to ask about an applicant’s religious beliefs. As a result, it is entirely conceivable that some parishes would fail to satisfy the “primarily hires Catholics” requirement of the exemption — an astonishing result.

I also wonder how many of our schools would be covered by the exemption. Certainly, one of the primary purposes of our Catholic schools is to inculcate religious values, but what if HHS decides that it has to be the sole purpose, in order to qualify? In addition, our schools are open to children of every faith, and many of them have a majority of non-Catholic students — which means they would fail the “primarily serves Catholics” requirement. Again, this would be an amazing result — that the government would decide that a Catholic school is not enough of a religious institution to qualify for the exemption.

As for our social service agencies, and hospitals, there is no question that they fail each part of the test, and could not avail themselves of the exception — their purpose is not to teach religious values, and they neither serve nor employ primarily Catholics. Once again, we have the absurd result in which agencies who absolutely consider themselves to be religious in nature and in mission, will be found by the government to be not sufficiently religious.

These basic facts are important for people to understand, if they are going to fully appreciate the extreme nature of the HHS mandate, and how it will violate our religious liberties.

Today is the second anniversary of the passage of the health care reform bill, known as the Affordable Care Act. Today was also a day on which thousands of Americans, across our nation, gathered at rallies to defend religious liberty.

I was privileged to address the rally at Federal Hall in lower Manhattan, both to add a few words of my own, and to read a letter of support from Cardinal Dolan.

We stood in the shadow of the statue of George Washington, one of the great defenders of religious liberty. We gathered at the spot where the first Congress enacted the Bill of Rights. We were there to decry the threat to religious liberty posed by the Affordable Care Act.

In his encyclical, The Gospel of Life, Pope John Paul warned of the dangers of a totalitarian form of democracy — where laws are enacted that violate the fundamental moral law, and endanger authentic freedom and dignity.

The ACA takes a dangerous step in that direction. To understand this, we must look behind the details of mandates, “accommodations” and “compromises”. We must recognize that the ACA embodies a totalitarian mindset that is fundamentally incompatible with liberty.

This law reaches every American citizen, every American business, every religious organization. Its reach is unprecedented, and vast. All individuals and institutions in America will be brought into line with an state-approved anti-life ideology that views fertility as a threat, pregnancy as a disease, and children as a burden to be eliminated. Churches and religious organizations will be defined by the government, and vulnerable to penalties if they dissent or resist. Faith-based institutions will be subject to intrusive investigation by officials who will pass judgment on the nature and legitimacy of their religious purpose and the beliefs of their staffs and the people they serve. Religious people will be coerced into speech and actions that endorse and promote things they find morally reprehensible. Even members of religious communities, like the Sister of Life, will be forced to violate their sacred vows or face punitive fines.

The temptation is to tinker around the edges of this threat, make compromises, and protect narrow institutional interests. But all that does is delay the inevitable, and lull us back into denial.

Surely we have passed that point, and instead have reached what biographer Eric Metaxas has called a “Bonhoeffer moment”. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the great German Lutheran theologian, worked mightily to resist the National Socialist ideology and the Nazi regime. At first, he tried to do so within the system, but eventually he realized that this was not possible, and that he had reached a time to stand firmly but lovingly in defense of religious liberty and the Church, even to the point of suffering.

By no means am I comparing our current government with the wicked Nazi regime. But evil laws come in many flavors and sizes. The laws of our nation that authorize the slaughter of the unborn are evil. The laws that permit the government to restrict the right to conscience of individuals and Churches are evil. It does not matter that they are enacted through the democratic process and have the veneer of legality. They offend against the laws of God and natural human rights.

We cannot let things go further down the path to totalitarian democracy. We must speak the truth with love, and resist by all lawful and peaceful means.

There has been a great deal of action on the new federal mandate that all health insurance policies cover contraceptives (including drugs that cause early abortions) and sterilizations. There is also a great deal of misinformation, political spin, and outright deception going around about what is actually at stake, and what has happened. Here are a few key points to keep in mind:

The Web of Mandates in the Health Care Law

Remember the background for this situation — it comes from the health care reform law, which is a comprehensive regulation that impacts everyone in the United States. That law imposes three levels of mandates: (1) all individuals will be required to have a health insurance policy, or pay a fine to the government; (2) all employers (with a few exceptions for small businesses) will have to provide their employees with an insurance plan or pay a fine to the government; and (3) all insurance companies will have to cover a variety of things, including “preventive services”. We must understand these legal requirements, if we’re going to understand the significance of this new mandate.

The Contraceptive/Abortion Mandate

Last summer, the Department of Health and Human Services, acting under the authority given to them by the health care reform law, announced regulations to define what had to be covered by health insurance policies under the rubric “preventive services”. These regulations would require all employers and health insurance policies to cover contraceptives (including drugs that cause early abortions) and sterilizations. There was an extremely narrow exemption for religious employers, but no exemption for religious individuals or insurance companies with objections.

There was considerable public furor in response, and thousands of people — including the U.S. Bishops and many other religious groups — filed comments with HHS, asking for the rejection of the regulation or the granting of a broader religious exemption. Nevertheless, on January 20, 2012, HHS announced that they were going to implement those regulations without any modification whatsoever.

There is No “Compromise”

In response to the renewed public furor that followed the issuance of the final regulations, the President announced on February 10 that there would be a “compromise” to address the religious liberty objections of churches and other faith-based institutions.

But here’s the key thing to remember: no details about this “compromise” have been announced. The Administration has made clear that they are not open to any further concessions on religious liberty. The original regulations have become law — there is absolutely no substance whatsoever to the “compromise”, beyond promises of something at some undefined time in the future after the next election. It’s all smoke and mirrors and political spin.

The net result is that there is virtually no way out of this mandate — it is very, very broad, and the “religious liberty” exemption is very, very narrow. Very few employers — and no individuals or insurance companies — will be able to claim conscientious objector status. There is no “compromise” in this regulation — nothing.

It’s Not About Banning Contraceptives — It’s About Religious Liberty

Sadly, access to contraceptives, at low or no cost, is virtually universal in the United States. Nobody is calling for them to be outlawed, and nobody is giving employers the power to ban their employees from buying them. That’s all media and political spin — it’s an outright lie. This is not about contraceptives. If people want to use them, that’s between them and God.

This is about government coercion against churches. It’s about the fundamental human right to tell the government to “leave us alone” — don’t make us cooperate with practices that we find immoral. As the U.S. Bishops’ Conference has said:

“Under the mandate, the government forces religious insurers to write policies that violate their beliefs; forces religious employers and schools to sponsor and subsidize coverage that violates their beliefs; and forces religious employees and students to purchase coverage that violates their beliefs.”

That’s contrary to the basic principles of American democracy, and that’s why we’re opposed to it.

What is Being Done to Fight This?

The U.S. Bishops have been very outspoken in opposition to the mandate, and in defense of our religious liberty. Every bishop in the United States has condemned this mandate. Leaders of many religious communities have condemned it. Leaders of other faiths — Orthodox, Protestant, and Jewish — have joined in opposing it.

Just last week, an attempt was made in the U.S. Senate to add an amendment to a spending bill, to provide protection for religious individuals and institutions. This particular tactic was chosen because the rules of the Senate require a super-majority of 60 votes before a bill can be brought to the floor for a vote — this is a legacy of the old days of filibustering. But the rules permit an amendment to be approved by a simple majority — 51 votes. It was hoped that this amendment would pass both the House and the Senate, and that the President would not veto a large and important spending bill, just for the sake of this provision. Unfortunately, the Senate did not approve the amendment — it only got 48 votes, just shy of the number needed for passage.

This leaves the Church with several options at this point:

Continue pressing Congress for action — There are several bills before Congress that would correct the problems created by this mandate. Bills like the Respect for Rights of Conscience Act and the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 2012 deserve our support. We must keep pressing Congress with emails and letters in support of them (an easy way is to go here). Unfortunately, our New York Senators and most of the Congressional representatives from the Archdiocese are unlikely to support our position. But we must keep the pressure on.

Going to court to defend our rights — Several lawsuits have been filed already, attacking the mandate, and more will be filed. The grounds for the cases include the First Amendment and the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. The entire health care law is currently being reviewed by the Supreme Court, and a decision will be handed down later this year.

Educating ourselves and others — This is a very complicated issue, and many people are suffering from political fatigue at this point in the seemingly-perpetual Presidential campaign. But there is so much dis-information out there that we must redouble our efforts to make sure that people understand what’s really going on here, and what’s at stake. The U.S. Bishops’ website has many valuable and easy-to-understand resources that we can use in our parishes and communities.

Supporting our bishops and standing united with them — The supporters of the mandate are trying to drive a wedge between Catholics and our bishops, and are forming alliances with Catholics who either dissent from Church teaching on contraception and abortion, or who would rather stand with politicians than their shepherds. Our bishops are being battered in the public square, and the level of anti-Catholic bigotry is simply astounding. This is a time for all Catholics to rally behind the standard of Christ — and to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with our bishops.

This is just one stage of a long, ongoing battle to defend religious freedom in our nation. This liberty is under continual attack from our own government. Our Lord promised that the gates of hell would never prevail against the Church. We must be fervent in our prayers, and steadfast and vigilant in our defense of the Church, and the rights of individuals to live according to their faith.

Today, the Sisters of Life issued a statement against the iniquitous HHS mandate that all health insurance plans cover sterilization and contraception (including drugs that cause abortions). This is an important contribution to the discussion, because it presents a problem with the mandate (and with the health care reform law in general) that has not adequately been considered — the effect on individual religious sisters, brothers and priests. Here is the statement, with a particularly important passage emphasized by me:

The Sisters of Life join with the Catholic Bishops of the United States, and leaders of many other religious communities, in strongly objecting to the Department of Health and Human Services rule for “preventative services,” and the “compromise” announced by President Obama regarding religious liberty. This mandate will gravely violate the individual and collective religious liberties of the Sisters of Life and millions of others by forcing us to pay for abortion-inducing drugs, sterilization, and artificial contraception against our conscience.

The Sisters of Life is a religious community of consecrated women, founded in 1991 by John Cardinal O’Connor. Ours is a religious community founded in the United States of America by a priest who dearly loved this country, and served as a Rear Admiral and Chief of Chaplains in the United States Navy. We, too, love our country. We are grateful to be a part of its proud history, for the generosity and valor of so many who call this nation home, and for the possibilities that arise from living authentic freedom within a pluralistic society. Yet now we are faced with a government decision that is not only a grave affront to the religious liberty and rights of conscience of every citizen of the United States, but also an offense to each Sister of Life in a particular way. Every professed member of our community takes a special vow “to protect and enhance the sacredness of human life.”

In response to a call from God and to the sheer beauty and goodness of the gift of life, each Sister dedicates herself to God that all people might come to know the precious gift of his or her life, and that every human life be protected and received as an unrepeatable icon of the living God. To this end, we defend vulnerable human life in the womb from the moment of conception, supporting and upholding mothers in need through emotional, spiritual and material support during and after their pregnancies. Because the gift of life is intrinsically linked to love, we also affirm and fully support the authentic teaching of the Catholic Church regarding marriage and sexuality. This includes an understanding that sterilization and contraception are gravely against God’s plan for human life and love, and we believe, in the end, are false promises that undermine the peace and freedom in commitment that are fruits of authentic human love.

Our special fourth vow, made in a solemn and sacred ceremony and binding on us in conscience and in the laws of the Church, is at the heart of our identity as a religious community, and is a profound expression of the religious and spiritual commitment of each of our Sisters. This new rule pays no heed to our right to live according to our vows. Under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act each of us will be required by law to obtain health insurance, or face fines. Since this HHS mandate will require every insurer to include abortion-inducing drugs, sterilization, and artificial contraception, we will not be able to obtain any coverage that is free from those “services,” and we will be forced to pay for them directly. Since we are neither employers, nor employees, of any religious institution, we cannot even take advantage of the “religious exemption” contained in the new regulations or the “compromise.”

As a result, this mandate would coerce each and every individual Sister of Life to betray her religious vows. We will be forced to pay for “services” that attack human life and deny the truth and beauty of human sexuality. This would directly contradict our special religious vow to “to protect and enhance the sacredness of human life,” and go against everything we believe in and have devoted our lives to. To us, it would be comparable to a law requiring a spouse to violate their marriage vows — an unthinkable intrusion upon a sacred promise.

This mandate is an offensive and dangerous infringement upon the natural and Constitutional rights of American citizens. The only just solution to this infringement of rights is to rescind the HHS rule. We call upon members of Congress and the Executive Branch to reverse this decision as soon as possible, and we invite our fellow citizens to join with us in prayer and fasting that our Nation may be protected from this great threat against liberty.

The statement can be found at the Sisters’ website. While you’re there, check out the wonderful work being done by the Sisters, and consider — what kind of society have we become, where our government would seek to force such women to be unfaithful to their vows? Can any of us think of a more egregious violation of the fundamental human right to religious freedom?

It continues to mystify me that some people just don’t seem to understand the idea that religious liberty is directly impacted by the HHS mandate that all insurance plans cover contraceptives (including abortion-causing drugs) and sterilization.

Let me try an analogy.

The status quo for health insurance prior to the health care law and the HHS mandate was very much like having an all-volunteer army. In that situation, if you supported the war, you were free to join and fight, to buy and sell war bonds, and to advocate for the war. If you didn’t support the war, you could just stand aside and let others serve. You weren’t forced to advocate for the war, tell anyone about where the recruiting stations were, or pay their expenses when they were flying over to the war zone. Yes, even those who oppose the war have to pay taxes, but the connection between them and the war expense was so remote as to be negligible.

In fact, if you joined the military but later developed moral scruples about the war, you could apply for a discharge as a conscientious objector. Indeed, even during times of national emergency, when there is a military draft, ample accommodation is given to conscientious objectors (e.g., the Amish) who cannot serve in conscience. Everybody understands that involuntarily enlisting those folks in the military is a terrible violation of their religious liberty. Of course, nobody is ever required to speak in favor of the war or buy war bonds, and nobody would ever suggest that the government could force them to do so.

Compare this now to the situation with the HHS mandate for contraception and sterilization coverage.

Prior to the mandate, it was just like the all-volunteer military. If you were an employer and you wanted to offer coverage for contraceptives, you were free to do so. If you were an employee who wanted contraceptives, you could either buy them yourself, work for a company whose insurance plan covered it, or obtain a private insurance policy that covered it. If you were an insurance company that wanted to provide that coverage, you were free to do so.

But, if you had objections to contraception, you also had lots of freedom to be a conscientious objector. If you were an employer and you didn’t want to offer coverage, you didn’t have to pay for it. Your employees could just go out and get them on their own. You didn’t even have to tell your employees anything about contraceptives, where to get them, etc. If they wanted to know these things, they can look them up online. If you were an employee who didn’t want anything to do with contraceptives, you could sign up for a policy that didn’t cover them. And if you were an insurance company that didn’t want to pay for them, you were free not to do so (in most states). In fact, even in the states that mandated contraceptive coverage, there were ways that employers and insurance companies could avoid it.

So, prior to the mandate, there was lots of freedom for everybody to act according to their consciences.

Under the mandate, though, all this freedom is lost. Employers will not only have to pay for contraceptives, they will have to tell their employees all about them — in other words, money will be pulled directly from their pockets to pay for this stuff, and words will be pulled out of their mouths to promote it. Individuals will have to obtain this insurance or have to pay a fine to the government (remember the individual mandate), whether they like it or not — so money will be pulled directly from their pockets to pay for this stuff for others. Insurance companies will also have to offer it — pay for it and promote it.

There is virtually no way out of this mandate — the mandate is very, very broad, and the “religious liberty” exemption is very, very narrow. Very few employers — and no individuals or insurance companies — will be able to claim conscientious objector status.

Think of how this will play out in the real world.

Imagine you’re a religious sister, working in a home for unwed mothers. You firmly believe in the sacredness of human life and oppose contraception. Prior to the mandate, you could obtain health insurance or not, depending on how you and your religious community felt about the economics of the deal. If you did get coverage, you could shop around and find a policy that reflected your moral objections to contraception, abortion and sterilization. But now, under the mandate, you have to get an insurance policy or risk paying a fine to the government.

Surely, you can see the loss of religious freedom. This sister will have to pay for and promotes practices that are directly against her religious beliefs.

Now imagine that you’re a Church. Imagine that you self-insure — in other words, you collect money from employees and put it in an account, pay some more yourself into that account, and you use that money to cover the medical expenses of the employees. Your own staff sets up this arrangement, issues and signs all the checks, tells the employees what services are covered or not, etc. Your HR department will tell all your employees all about the health care plan, including what is covered. Your HR department will issue fancy brochures with the name of your church all over it (and probably the signature of your bishop someplace in there), telling them what is covered.

I hope that you can see how this mandate will impact the freedom of speech and religion here — not only will the church be forced to directly pay for contraceptives, but church officials (including the bishop, ultimately) will be forced to tell employees that he will pay for their birth control pills or sterilization. That’s a pretty huge impact on the religious liberty of that Church and it’s employees.

So, we’re basically in the situation of the conscientious objector/pacifist who not only is being forced to serve in the military, he’s being forced to buy and sell war bonds, write pro-war propaganda, and help other soldiers do what he morally objects to.

Is there any wonder, then, that the Catholic and Orthodox bishops, leaders of many Jewish and Protestant organizations, members of Congress, state officials, and (at last count) over 200 professors, legal experts, pundits and intellectuals, along with millions of the faithful, have raised their voices in outrage over this mandate?

The HHS mandate has now been confirmed and implemented, in the same precise terms as were announced last year. Under this regime, all individuals will be required to obtain health insurance that will provide free coverage for sterilization, contraception and some abortion-causing drugs. The exemption for religious employers continues to be extremely limited, and all we have is the President’s promise that he will provide something more expansive at some undefined point in the future.

So, where do we go from here?

It’s very important that we not allow this issue to be understood solely in terms of election year partisan politics. That’s unavoidable, of course — it is an election year, and it is already an issue in the campaign. But for us, this is an issue that far transcends the current political climate. This is an existential question for Catholics. What does it mean to be a Catholic in America at this point in time? What are we to do when our government enacts laws that we cannot, in conscience, obey? How do I remain a good, law-abiding citizen, while also preserving my soul?

We have to recognize that we have reached a critical point of decision, both as a Church and as individual Catholics. The political forces out there — the Administration and their opponents, along with all the pundits and spin-doctors — are seeking to divide us into opposing camps, in order to win votes or to advance policy goals. Our bishops are trying to keep us united in the Body of Christ.

Listen for a second to what Cardinal George said the other day, during his periodic (ad limina) visit to the Holy Father — an event that enhances the universal unity of the Church. He said (the emphasis is added by me):

Even in the midst of this strengthened unity, news of attempts to weaken the unity between the bishops and the faithful have been reported. This is the first time in the history of the United States that a presidential administration has purposely tried to interfere in the internal working of the Catholic Church, playing one group off against another for political gain. What isn’t always understood is that the Bishops of the Church make no attempt to speak for all Catholics; they never have. The Bishops speak for the Catholic and apostolic faith, and those who hold that faith gather around them. Others disperse.

Just so. Unity with our bishops has always been the hallmark of the Church. As St. Ignatius of Antioch said in the early second century, “Wherever the bishop is, there let the people be; even as, wherever Jesus Christ is, there is the Catholic Church.”

Our bishops are calling us to rally around them, behind the standard of Christ. It is sad that some people will disperse, and choose to follow a different standard — they will decide instead to accommodate themselves to the spirit of the age, with the Administration’s contraceptive anti-life ideology, or with various political forces. Just as it was in Gethsemane, so also it is today. Some will remain faithful, others will not. Clearly, we need to conduct a prayer campaign to foster unity in the Church and a greater respect for human life (like this one, or this one, for instance).

All this is not to say, however, that we are to stand by and disengage from the public policy struggle. Although it appears that the Administration is absolutely intransigent on this issue, there are still two other branches of government. Court cases have already been filed, and more will follow, to challenge this violation of our religious freedom. We can’t leave things to the courts, though — we need to work together and redouble our efforts to influence Congress to pass legislation to protect the right of conscience. Bills like the Respect for Rights of Conscience Act and the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 2012 deserve our support. We should all be flooding Congress with emails and letters in support of them (an easy way is to go here).

As laypeople, we also need to remember that this is an election year, and that every member of the House of Representatives, one-third of the Senators, and the next President will all be elected in November. This issue, as much as any in our lifetimes, should serve to remind us of our duty as Catholic voters.

(The following is an open letter signed by several prominent intellectuals, in response to the Administration’s “compromise”. It is an important and cogent summary of the significance of that proposal, so I offer it to you in its entirety. It was originally posted here.)

Today the Obama administration has offered what it has styled as an “accommodation” for religious institutions in the dispute over the HHS mandate for coverage (without cost sharing) of abortion-inducing drugs, sterilization, and contraception. The administration will now require that all insurance plans cover (“cost free”) these same products and services. Once a religiously-affiliated (or believing individual) employer purchases insurance (as it must, by law), the insurance company will then contact the insured employees to advise them that the terms of the policy include coverage for these objectionable things.

This so-called “accommodation” changes nothing of moral substance and fails to remove the assault on religious liberty and the rights of conscience which gave rise to the controversy. It is certainly no compromise. The reason for the original bipartisan uproar was the administration’s insistence that religious employers, be they institutions or individuals, provide insurance that covered services they regard as gravely immoral and unjust. Under the new rule, the government still coerces religious institutions and individuals to purchase insurance policies that include the very same services.

It is no answer to respond that the religious employers are not “paying” for this aspect of the insurance coverage. For one thing, it is unrealistic to suggest that insurance companies will not pass the costs of these additional services on to the purchasers. More importantly, abortion-drugs, sterilizations, and contraceptives are a necessary feature of the policy purchased by the religious institution or believing individual. They will only be made available to those who are insured under such policy, by virtue of the terms of the policy.

It is morally obtuse for the administration to suggest (as it does) that this is a meaningful accommodation of religious liberty because the insurance company will be the one to inform the employee that she is entitled to the embryo-destroying “five day after pill” pursuant to the insurance contract purchased by the religious employer. It does not matter who explains the terms of the policy purchased by the religiously affiliated or observant employer. What matters is what services the policy covers.

The simple fact is that the Obama administration is compelling religious people and institutions who are employers to purchase a health insurance contract that provides abortion-inducing drugs, contraception, and sterilization. This is a grave violation of religious freedom and cannot stand. It is an insult to the intelligence of Catholics, Protestants, Eastern Orthodox Christians, Jews, Muslims, and other people of faith and conscience to imagine that they will accept as assault on their religious liberty if only it is covered up by a cheap accounting trick.

Finally, it bears noting that by sustaining the original narrow exemptions for churches, auxiliaries, and religious orders, the administration has effectively admitted that the new policy (like the old one) amounts to a grave infringement on religious liberty. The administration still fails to understand that institutions that employ and serve others of different or no faith are still engaged in a religious mission and, as such, enjoy the protections of the First Amendment.

Signed:

John Garvey
President, The Catholic University of America

Mary Ann Glendon
Learned Hand Professor of Law, Harvard University

Robert P. George
McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence, Princeton University

So now the Administration has offered what they call a “compromise” on the HHS contraception and abortion mandate.

In their initial comment, the Bishops have said that they need to study the proposal, and are hoping that it is a first step towards a genuine resolution of this problem.

Of course, as I’ve noted before, the whole notion of “compromise” means that you actually consult with others and come to a mutually agreed-upon settlement. But the President apparently thinks that “spending months hammering out a solution was not going to be an option”. So, instead, we have yet another ukase from our rulers, dressed up in the guise of a “reasonable accommodation”.

But it is nothing of the kind.

There are no details available that would allow us to evaluate the actual content of the proposal. The Administration says that it will publish rules later today, and will defer some decisions until some time in the future. Instead, we have a press release plus lots of political spin, where all the usual suspects are trotted out to try to put out the political fires that the Administration has brought upon itself.

Given the lack of details, we can’t tell if the key questions have been addressed:

How will they define a “religious employer”? If there are any conditions on what kind of organizations will qualify as “religious”, based on the purpose of the organization is or the religious beliefs of the employees or clients, then it is still clearly unacceptable.

What kind of information will have to be provided to the employees? Will the employer be forced to refer people directly to contraception providers? Will they be required to inform employees about what kind of contraceptive services are available from the insurance company? Either way, it would force religious organizations to say things that are contrary to their beliefs.

Is there any provision for non-religious employers or individuals who do not want to subsidize abortion, sterilization or contraception? Individuals have rights under the First Amendment and the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act — will they be ignored?

Given the Administration’s track record in this area, I personally expect that none of these questions will be answered in a way that is favorable to respect for human life and religious liberty.

Perhaps the most cynical part of the proposal is the economics. I cannot believe that anyone in the Administration is so naive about fundamental principles of economics that they think there is any such thing as a free lunch. And yet, they claim that individuals will be able to obtain services free of charge, without the religious employer paying for them, because the insurance company will have to foot the entire bill.

What, can insurance companies print money now, just as the government does, to cover deficits?

Don’t they understand that the insurance companies will just pass the costs of these “free” services on to the employers, other employees, doctors, and ultimately taxpayers? This is not that hard a concept. In the real world, religious employers and individuals will still be compelled to pay for offensive services like sterilizations and early abortions — but the Administration is asking us to look the other way and pretend that it’s not happening.

Since the Administration has shown no real interest in “compromise” in any meaningful sense, we may have reached a point where there is really no alternative. All people who care about religious freedom and the defense of human life should unite in pressing Congress to pass an authentic conscience protection bill (like the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 2012). And we need to support either repeal or fundamental changes to the tainted tree that has borne this ugly fruit — the health care law as a whole.

I’ve been following politics my whole life. I understand the politicians live in a different world than the rest of us. But is still surprises me when they work from a different dictionary.

We’re talking now about the Administration and their mandate that all employers, including Catholic institutions, will be forced to offer their employees health coverage that includes sterilization, abortion-inducing drugs, and contraception — free of charge.

Having inadvertently dragged the Church into electoral year politics, the Administration has now started talking about “compromise” to take some of the heat off. To most normal people, the word “compromise” means that people sit down, talk to each other as equals, and try to work out something that will respect each other’s beliefs and values. An online dictionary defines it as “a settlement of differences by mutual concessions”.

But the Administration seems to think that the word means “surrender your values, be quiet, and do what we tell you”.

We’ve seen some of these “compromise” laws in other states, and they don’t resemble anything a normal person would consider to be a genuine “settlement of differences by mutual concessions”. All of them run roughshod over religious liberty, and merely dress up the morally offensive mandate in slightly different clothing, in hopes that people won’t recognize it. Here’s why:

The government cannot be in the business of defining what is a church and what is not. The Establishment Clause of the First Amendment specifically forbids the government from picking its favorite churches and rewarding them, while penalizing those churches that are in official disfavor. Yet all of these “compromise” laws would give the government the sole authority to determine who is a “religious employer” and who is not — and impose mandates on the unfavored, with potentials for onerous fines for those who don’t conform.

The government has no business investigating religious organizations or the religious beliefs of workers or clients. In order to enforce these “compromise” laws, the government will have to poke around in the internal operations of churches, asking questions about their “primary purpose”, and even asking about the religious beliefs of employees or clients. It’s hard to imagine a more offensive intrusion on religious liberty.

The government cannot force people to say and do things that violate their religious and moral beliefs. One of the “compromise” laws being talked about (Hawaii’s) requires religious employers to provide “written information describing how an enrollee may directly access contraceptive services” — in other words, it requires them to give people a direct referral to the local Planned Parenthood clinic. Essentially, the government will be forcing words out of our mouths — words we find deeply offensive.

We’ve been down this road before. We know the playbook. Now that the Administration is facing some political heat, they’ve started talking about “compromise” — without being open to conceding anything real. Next, we’ll see the release of polls that purport to show that the bishops are “out of touch” with Catholics — as if our constitutional rights are disposable, based on the shifting whims of public opinion. Dissenting Catholics will be trotted out, to talk about their disagreements with Church teaching. Then, there will be “gotcha” moments where the advocates will lead the media to agencies that are already complying with similar mandates under protest, and imply that we don’t really mean what we say. The bishops and their supporters will be labeled “heartless” and “anti-woman”, and will be on the receiving end of protests and heart-rending “human interest” stories. It will be unpleasant and personal, with sharp elbows thrown in the corners — that’s the way that ideological politics is played by the devotees of the Culture of Death.

And, they won’t stop with contraceptives and sterilizations. Forcing insurance plans to cover surgical abortion is clearly next — a bill to that effect is moving forward in Washington State, and one has been introduced in the New York Legislature. And once they’re finished with gutting our religious liberty, they’ll move on to someone else’s freedoms.

The best solution to this problem is to eliminate this awful mandate. There is no compelling need to provide sterilization and hormonal contraceptives, free of charge to users, while all the rest of us — including those of us who consider those services to be dangerous and immoral — pick up the tab in higher insurance premiums.

There is no compelling reason — outside of anti-life ideology — to throw out the First Amendment, all in the name of a phony “compromise”.